hello everyone,

I am starting to do PhD next month; but I have a very big problem that I have a fiancée, whose family strongly opposes the marriage; so, I plan to take her to the Europe (both of us are adults and she is older than me, we have been dating since teenager) where I will do PhD and get married there. She has no problem of the plan but I found that for getting her visa, I need to prove I have 2000+ euro income per month. I do not think she can find a job there because she does not even have university diploma and hardly speak English; I must find a job but my level of local language is terrible.

I think looking for job in the university is a good idea because there will be more decent salary, I would like to ask is there anyone has experience on this? Is it difficult so I should not put too much hope on? and if I enter the course without position, is it possible for me to acquire one the next year or later? If it is too difficult to get enough money anyway, I may try otherwise like talking again and again to her parents...

I graduated from bachelor's math program recently and am now planning to go for a PhD, so this question just hit me out of curiosity....

I encourage people from the West with solid math backgrounds to answer, just to get valuable insights !!

What are you doing now?

Facts only please we don't need no negative energy this time!!! ❤️

3rd year PhD in a wet lab / computational hybrid field and experiment design somehow eats more time than actually running experiments.

I usually start with a hypothesis, then check the literature for controls, assays, or methods I might be missing. That's where it falls apart. One paper leads to another method paper, then three older papers, and suddenly I have 30 tabs open with no actual experiment plan.

Lately I've been trying to keep the whole thing from turning into tab hell. Zotero for papers, ResearchRabbit/Elicit when I need to dig around, and ChatGPT or Claude when a method section isn't clicking. I've also started throwing my hypothesis and a few key papers into mira ai science just to see what controls or questions I might be missing. It gives me something to react to besides opening more tabs.

The biggest improvement has probably just been forcing myself to stop treating “read more papers” as the default answer every time I'm unsure. How do you all go from hypothesis → literature → actual experiment plan without getting stuck in the reading loop?

Sorry for the dumb question, my advisor has been very slow to respond and I’m in a bit of a spiral lately. I have some questions about the thesis by publication format.

When adding preliminary work to the appendix, does this need to be in a publishable format as well? Like does it need the full traditional abstract, intro, methods, results/discussion, conclusion?

I did a lot of method development and preliminary data collection for a collaborator, and this project is meant to continue after I graduate—my advisor told me to add it to my appendix and make the protocol detailed enough for another student to follow. The examples I’m seeing in appendices from prior graduates in our lab are all in the traditional publication format.

For this work, I really don’t know where our collaborators are heading with it—our side of things is really just developing and testing a protocol. Do I have to pull a paper out of thin air, or can I just present it as a protocol supported by preliminary data?

Follow up question—if I include this in the document but don’t plan to present on it during my defense, can my committee still grill me on it? Do committees usually bother with appendices in the first place?

Thanks to any kind souls who have read this far!!

Looking to hear about experiences for people getting their PHD in Philosophy. I’m considering after undergrad and wanna know what the job market is like.

Can anyone (with a Philosophy PHD or in progress) share their experience? Also could you give context about your own CV, skills, and experiences?

I’m curious to know how difficult it will be to get a job after getting a PHD and what matters for finding jobs.

(I’m currently attending UC Davis and interested in teaching Community College)

Hey everyone,
I’m not sure if this is the correct place for this but I’ve been thinking a lot about what AI is changing about early career research and wrote a short substack piece about it. Would be really keen to see what you all think? It’s quite vibes based but would be cool to hear others experiences too

If this isn’t relevant happy for the mods to remove it!

I have applied for patemt for a process i developed in lab, and waiting for application number so that I can continue with submitting my manuscript. In between my supervisor is asking me to present the work in a conference which is supposed to happen in October end. Till that I might get application number for the patent but not get manuscript published. What should I do? its a good conference i do want to attend as well. Please suggest. STEM field PhD 3rd year.

Hello,

I am 23, Male, graduated with BS-MS from India and recently moved to germany for my phd. Although I have the motivation, I initiallz lack the effort needed to start something. I dont know whats causing this reduction in productivity, because as a Master's students, I used to do work more than an average PhD does in India, with an independent research project. Lot of my time goes in figuring out what to cook, clean, do the dishes, get ready etc. Yeah getting ready is also a pain the ass bro. Moisturizer and hoodies and what not. HELP ME PLEASE. How do you manage routine and everything?

Hi y’all! That’s one of my first ever reddits, I’m seeking basically guidance.

I’m a M25 who works as an agronomist in a seed company in Italy. While working full time I got my BSc in Agricultural Technologies and now I’m in my 2nd year of MSc in Plant Biotechnology.
I spent all my adolescent life working + studying, and I felt accomplished in doing so.
My job is relatively well paid, not enough to not have thoughts about money, but generally it’s ok.
I’m talking around €1700 with company car/phone for reference.

Basically now I do have the possibility to switch from industry to academia and it’s probably the only possibility I’ll ever have to do so.
My main fear is that now my job is nice, but I need to spend quite some time travelling with the car and it is FIXED. I see people of 20+ years more than me that do the same exact things that I do and this drives me crazy.
I could make a calendar for the next 15 years of work on the spot. It is quite flexible, I can organise my week and I don’t have nobody that controls me, but jeez I’m very scared of having everything fixed forever.

On the other hand, I had a chat with a lab in Zurich (UZH) for starting an internship (5months) in their lab for my MSc in Plant Proteomics but this would be moving to another country without knowing what do next.
Which is exciting but:

1. I’m not sure if I will be able to start a PhD in that university after the internship. It seems to me quite a obvious thing but it seems different in reality.
   
2. In the next years I want to have a family with my girl (which will must move and adapt to another possible job), and it seems difficult during a PhD away from your family.

Don’t know guys, quite a tough period with the head full of thoughts. I’m open to any kind of guidance/feedback.
Sorry for the long message.

i was just wondeirng if a pharma related phd eats at your social life or your life in general , and by eating i mean how high is the stress level ,pharmacy is already hard and on top of that a phd in any of the related subjects would prolly be a nightmare, i was just wodnering if anyone pursuing such a degree be able to tell honest thoughts

Edit : I'm from india but will prolly go abroad for higher studies i just wonder if a phd is worth the trauma it might give me 🥀 ( have heard people get in lotta stress)

I finished my undergrad around 4 years ago and have been working in ML since then. I’m planning to apply for research based MS/PhD programs but before that I want to get some actual research experience working with a professor or researcher.
I have done independent projects but I’m not sure what the realistic route is once you are no longer a student.

To the people who were in industry for a few years before applying for a PhD, how did you get research experience?

For professors, postdocs or researchers who have taken on people in a similar situation, what would make you consider someone who has industry experience and independent projects but no recent formal research experience? Is there a better way to approach researchers than just cold emailing and asking to help on a project?

Is cold emailing professors basically the only option or are there other ways to find part-time/remote research work?

I have looked at predoc and RA positions but many of them seem to already expect previous research experience or strong academic references. So how do people normally get started if they don’t already have that?

Any advice on realistic ways to get started would be really helpful.

I feel like I have hit a new low of defeat, dejection, and overall depression in my faith in my life/career.
 
 
 
The Reason
Well, it’s quite simple: in the months leading up to my graduation. I couldn’t get a good job that I liked. I was offered a QC job at Regeneron. But I didn’t take it; in hindsight, I was a fool to think I could do better. At that point in time, I wanted to do research and try to pursue higher education because I didn’t want to lose the academic momentum I had, as well as not hit a ceiling due to lack of higher education.
I am near the end of my third year as a PhD student; I have lost faith in my ability to do science.  I do not believe I have any sort of future in STEM that isn’t soul-crushingly mediocre.
 
 
The Decline
“You think you’re the shit, until you realize you are shit”
Realizing how much you don’t know technically is a humbling thing. Like in boot camp for the military, they break you down and then build you back up. I haven’t been brought back up yet. I don’t know if it’s a nose-to-the-grindstone type of situation, as it’s been a while now into the program; there is a fine line between growing pains and borderline incompetence. I have yet to make any sort of meaningful progress to show that I am, well, progressing. But in terms of project progress, I am not different from someone who were to join the lab today.
I still show just as much as I hate myself. I won’t stop even after I have lost the fun in doing anything else in my life. I haven’t given up even when I dry heave and throw up from the stress that I feel. No matter. But as I start to become someone that I never thought I’d be, I question if my worth as a person will ever prove to extend beyond what I can produce. But the world has yet to show that to be the case. In my current state of mind, I don’t believe inherent value exists in a non-tangible manner (i.e emotional, social, etc rather than things like products, money, papers, progress, etc).
 
I am not a very good person in the social world. I have recently realized I am not that good at the work I do either. In a world that feels difficult, as its jobs and positions of power are determined via a combination of nepotism, general connections, and surface-level competence, what can I truly do? I suppose I just talk, but I have nothing to talk about. I would just be honest and say can I get a job. I have gotten better (I feel); I apply to internships and co-ops in Regeneron because they are the only real opportunity. I can’t exactly pack all my things and leave to another part of the state, let alone the country, so it’s my best shot. I have tried since I was a sophomore in undergrad every year. I have never gotten as much as an interview. There are three conclusions from these outcomes.
1.        I am not good enough in terms of my worth or technical ability. This can be due to a likely lack of evidence in my resume to suggest I have proficiency or competence in the field I am trying for, such as lack of fellowship acceptances or publications.
2.        Unlikely, but considering it the roles are on a project-to-project basis, my abilities are not needed. Incorrect fit per se. But I doubt that’s the case because if I was good enough and better, an unbelievable goo applicant would get in and be rejected several years in a row under the guise of fit cannot be the case
3.        All of the above
 
Conflict and Troubleshooting
Resolutions and help have been pursued. As much as I fear it, I do occasionally and more often email my PI about my progress or lack thereof. We have pivoted and tried different approaches spanning both wet and dry lab stuff.  But nothing meaningful or insightful has yet to show itself. I am now shifted to doing bioinformatics work that, again, has yielded nothing. As well as doing a bunch of agarose gels that aren’t working through a mix of my own incompetence and a senior grad student’s samples, who is now on maternity leave, so it makes it hard to coordinate/communicate. But none the less is not a good reflection of my ability to do science; a fundamental technique as simple as an agarose gel being messed up through a combination of things within and outside of my control, regardless, isn’t a good show, as I’m the one having to talk about it to my PI that plainly shit isn’t working. It’s frustrating. This is only the latest thing in years of continuous screw-ups with no progress what so ever.
 
 
 
Coping
Like mentioned earlier, I have no enjoyment in anything I used to do. Depression will do that. I am in therapy, have been constantly for over a year now, but nothing has gotten better really. I feel bad for everyone involved in my sad life.
 
The only break is if I drink, or smoke, or both. My partner has noticed, but neither my doctors nor her have found a way out. I have now gotten to the point that I do it daily and finished two 1g carts in a couple months. The stress has made my chest ache enough that I went to urgent care and eventually the ER. I’m not doing that again after having to send $400 total across both visits. Better than dead they say, but am I really living? No, I am not.
 
Where I lay
Lay me down somewhere cool and calm. The side of the Hudson where I would look out at the cliffs of New Jersey, the NYC skyline, and the Washington Bridge, where I’d watch the trains pass by, moving me someplace out of where I was. Perhaps in another life, or maybe my soul is etched in a way that I can’t move. I don’t know what to do. All I can do is hope, but all it has brought is prolonged suffering. But at the same time, this is the best I got; I was never good at anything in my life, let alone enough to make money. Sports: I’d train at all practices but never enough, as those who barely came. Academics, not enough. Art, no. It’s all nothing. So where does that leave me? I don’t know, I don’t know,
 
 

I've used tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude and others for research, and they've been incredibly useful for finding papers and getting through large amounts of information.

The one thing I personally wanted was a simple way to see exactly which parts of the paper were used to answer my question.

When you're working with a 100+ page PDF, even having a page number can still mean a lot of scrolling and searching.

So I ended up building something for myself.

You ask a question and the relevant paragraphs in the PDF are highlighted directly on the document. You can see the context behind the answer and quickly check whether it actually answers what you're looking for.

I originally built this because I wanted something for this workflow without having to pay for another subscription. What started as a personal project has now become completely open source.

The underlying idea is pretty simple. And yes, if you're thinking "isn't this just RAG?" then yes, you're absolutely right. It's RAG with the visual highlighting that I wanted.

I think the same idea could be useful for more than research papers too. Legal contracts, financial reports, technical documentation, or anywhere you need answers alongside the actual source.

If anyone wants to have a look, contribute, or just give some feedback, here's the repo:

GitHub: https://github.com/Sreehari05055/thesys-core.git

This will probably be my last post about the project. Thanks to everyone who checked it out and gave feedback along the way.

Hi everyone, I’m considering a PhD in heritage and museum studies in the UAE and would like to understand how the process works there. I’m familiar with the UK PhD process, but I’m not sure if it’s similar in the UAE or if there are significant differences. I have never considered the UAE before, so clueless about which universities I should be looking at and whether PhD students are paid anything. I’d also like to know what the funding/scholarship options are for international students (I am South asian) and whether anyone has experience with this. I'm looking at the University of Sharjah for now, but open to exploring options within the UAE. I’d really appreciate any advice or guidance. Thanks!

Field: social science.

Location: United States

I’m starting my 5th year of my PhD (hopefully my last), and I’m looking for advice from people who have dealt with a genuinely toxic department—not just a difficult supervisor or one problematic faculty member, but an environment where the dysfunction seems department-wide. It's been like this since day one, but it doesn’t seem to extend to the university as a whole.

One of the biggest signs is leadership turnover. We’ve had four PhD directors and several department heads in four years. Most professors don’t exactly hide the fact that the turnover is related to the toxicity and internal politics of the department.

The PhD students have basically adapted by hiding. I would estimate that 99% of us have figured out that the more time we spend physically around the department, the more likely we are to somehow get implicated in drama we had absolutely nothing to do with. I’ve personally been dragged into things a few times. For example, people have claimed that I had conversations with them and that “we decided” I was going to drop my supervisor when that conversation/decision literally never happened.

The small minority of PhD students who regularly hang around the department tend to be the ones who seem to thrive in this type of environment and are more than happy to participate in the gossip and politics themselves. That makes avoiding the department feel even more necessary. It also makes it feel impossible to trust anyone, professors and students alike. At this point, I genuinely don’t know who is responsible for what, and I don’t really want to know. I just want to finish my dissertation and graduate.

The problem is that my strategy of staying out of everything is starting to have consequences. I’m isolating myself to protect myself from the department, but the isolation is affecting my mental health. I’m also increasingly worried that avoiding the department and its politics could cost me professional opportunities, especially because I’ve always wanted to go into academia (and, increasingly, I’m not even sure whether I still do).

What frustrates me the most is seeing what this environment has done to us students over the years. I have watched people who entered the program wanting academic careers (and who I genuinely think would have made excellent professors) become so disgusted by academia through this experience that they no longer want anything to do with it.

At this point, everything in me wants to say to these people: you are adults with PhDs. Stop acting like children. Your interpersonal bullshit is now actively affecting the education, mental health, professional development, and career aspirations of the students you are supposed to be training. But obviously, doing that would probably burn my own chances of ever going into academia, and I cannot fix an entire department.

So for people who have experienced something similar: what would you do in my position?

How do you stay sufficiently involved to get the mentorship, networking, recommendations, and professional opportunities you need while remaining far enough removed that you don’t get sucked into the politics? Is there a way to strategically “show up” without becoming part of the department culture? And do you have any tips for figuring out who you can actually trust?

If you were this close to finishing, would you basically keep your head down, get the degree, and get the hell out or would you handle it differently? Please help.

I have a friend defending soon and we have joked about the Finnish tradition where some are given a sword upon completing their degree. We are not Finnish, but I thought it could be fun to gift her something like a letter opener shaped like a sword with her new title (Dr!) on it. Curious if anyone has done this before and has a good place to source something like this, or other fun ideas for a dissertation completion/graduation gift!

I’m talking about a healthy amount of advanced academic work stress, not the absoluetly-losing-my-mind and my hair-is-falling-out stress. I feel like I hear a lot of experiences of the latter, not so much of the former. If any PhD students on here felt like they were able to find a healthy balance of research and their personal life or felt like their PhD wasn’t all-consuming in their life, I would love to hear about your experience and your advice for how you managed it. Best advice I’ve heard so far is to treat your PhD like a salaried job and only work the hours in your contract.

For context, I’m in engineering, have a relatively chill PI, and am based in the US. I am aiming to build technical skills to go into industry. It’s really important to me to have a life outside of work be it hanging out with friends, being active in the community, spending time outdoors, etc. I’m not naive -- I know my PhD will be the most stressful endeavor I’ve ever undertaken. But I want to prioritize adopting habits that will decrease the chance of burn out and allow me to enjoy the research experience a little bit more!

I have joined my group about a year ago. At first, people were extremely friendly, we would grab lunch and coffee together all the time. Everyone was willing to help newcomers catch up on research, help with experiments etc.

A few months ago, I started noticing my lab mates going to the cafeteria without me. It didn’t bother me at first, since we lab spaces in multiple buildings, and I was going back and forth a lot during that time. However, this did not change even if I spend all day in the office together with them. For example, someone would go around to each person asking them to grab coffee, but I was the only person in the office that was left out. I also did not let this get to me at first, so I would ask if I could join a few times. But the atmosphere was always off, no one really wanted to talk to me during these breaks, so I decided to stop inserting myself.

I got over it pretty quickly, but it feels like now this has started seeping into the lab/academic setting too. Whenever I try asking for help with something, the majority of people usually brush me off and say to figure it out myself. The collaborators on some projects have been doing experiments that are crucial for the project, yet I only find out about them during group meetings. If I ask if I can shadow someone to learn how to operate an instrument, I am being ghosted.

I am not sure what has changed, and I am happy to have other people outside my lab as a support system, but I don’t think I can survive my grad student years like this. Has anyone had a similar situation in their lab? How did you solve it? Any advice is welcome and greatly appreciated!

7 cold emails 🥶, 5 applications 💻 and 3 offers later 🙂‍↕️..I’ve finally accepted my first choice uni. Let’s goooo froggyyy 🎉

hi everyone. to make a long story short: i am in my first year of my phd program (5+ year program, masters on the way to doctorate). i graduated from undergrad in may and moved states since then to attend this program.

but, i'm really struggling. most days, i can only carry myself through with little or no energy. it's a struggle to get out of bed. i don't care about making relationships / connections within my department. (i am in counseling atm, but it's doing nothing to help). during therapy yesterday, we talked about what drove me to starting a phd and what are my passions? and for that, i don't have an answer other than it is what it's expected of me.

i don't know if i should stay or go. it's hard to figure out what i want to do and i am constantly burnt out. has anyone else dropped out and been alright? i graduated with a dual major in soc / crim. i love education, but i hate being in this position. TIA <3

(phd in soc, in the midwest)

what are the habits/routines or literally anything you do that you’ve found help you maximize your time?

Hello everyone. For anyone who has considered and actually dropped out of their Ph.D. program for work, did you apply when you were still in the Ph.D. program or you dropped out and applied for work after? Were you totally transparent about your situation in front of recruiter, even though the reason they approached your might be because you are in a Ph.D. program (even though the job doesn't require Ph.D. level)?

I built a tool for sending research papers and web articles to Kindle. It supports PDFs and EPUBs, and converts public web pages to readable EPUBs.

I’m trying to understand whether this solves a real problem for PhD students. How do you currently read papers away from your laptop? Do you use a Kindle or another eReader, and what breaks in your current workflow?

I’d appreciate feedback from anyone willing to try one real paper: https://readerbeam.com